Robert Plant and the Sensational Space Shifters

Michael Dwyer

THE GUY from Led Zeppelin declared his distaste for rock'n'roll nostalgia early in his set. "My peers may flirt with cabaret, some fake the rebel yell," he muttered darkly in the pointedly electro-futuristic bleep and burble of Tin Pan Valley. "Me, I'm moving up to higher ground, I must escape their hell."

He did and he didn't on his long awaited return to Australia with his aptly named Sensational Space Shifters. Somewhere between the retro-psychedelic backdrop of his circa '69 self and his midlife pilgrimage to Afro-electronic transcendence was a world of compromise for icon and audience alike.

Zeppelin songs loomed large in his set, but rarely with the faithfulness and affection that made the mandolin-driven Going to California such a gift. Plant's young band seemed far more excited to be playing Ramble On than he allowed himself to be.

And with due respect for his insistence on creative evolution, the fleeting appearance of Jimmy Page's crucial riff in an exotically reconstructed Whole Lotta Love seemed less teasing than plain churlish.

We got the point. Even the most sentimental fan surely understood the ethnomusicology behind Black Dog shot with guttural west African twang and drone. But robbed of the thunderous melody that dragged it from the dust to hard rock heaven, it was simply a less remarkable song.

The ancient blues bedrock of Charley Patton and Bukka White proved more amenable to Plant's designs with African frame drums and single-stringed Gambian fiddle. And his intoxicating mix of desert dust and electronic interference came up a treat in his own more recent songs, such as The Enchanter and Another Tribe.

But with the best intentions and musicians in the world, it seems that baggage of Led Zeppelin's magnitude is no easier to repack than discard.